A career spent trying to save youths like Parrish Flournoy

Killing gets to juvenile probation officer, whose bond with the young man offers a glimpse of how some are trying to curb Chicago's violence

February 18, 2013|By Steve Mills, Chicago Tribune reporter

Cook County probation officer Tom Schneider, who retired after 40 years, says Parrish Flournoy "was no angel," but the two forged a bond, and Schneider tried to help the young man. Flourney was gunned down Oct. 5 on the South Side, one of 506 homicides in Chicago in 2012. (Chris Walker, Chicago Tribune)

Even after Tom Schneider ended his role as Parrish Flournoy's juvenile probation officer, the two remained close.

The young man wrote Schneider letters, lamenting the years that he had wasted using drugs and pledging to stay out of trouble. Schneider encouraged him. He offered Flournoy advice. He sent books, knowing that Flournoy had grown into a voracious reader.

Last spring and summer, as Flournoy prepared to finish a stint at boot camp following a burglary conviction, it seemed that he was turning things around. True, he had squandered a big cash settlement that he had received from a lawsuit. But he told Schneider he wanted a new life.

"I have wasted too much of my life to this system and have got nothing out of it," Flournoy wrote to Schneider from boot camp in May.

Five months later, Flournoy, 22, was shot and killed on the South Side, apparently in an argument over his bicycle. Less than three months after that, Schneider retired as a Cook County juvenile probation officer, the death of the young man he tried desperately to help a sorrowful bookend to a lengthy career.

Flournoy's slaying did not prompt Schneider's retirement, but it loomed large in his last months at work. It forced him to look back on Flournoy's struggles, on a life that began with parental neglect and exposure to domestic violence and included drug abuse and eventual placement at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines — only to have Flournoy allege he was sexually abused by a staff member, according to court records and interviews.

By the time Flournoy was placed in the juvenile probation department and Schneider became his probation officer, he had been in foster homes, group homes, at least one residential treatment facility and a psychiatric hospital. It was a life lived, for the most part, in the system.

"Parrish was no angel, but you couldn't help but like him," Schneider said. "There was something likable about Parrish."

Flournoy's homicide was one of 506 in Chicago last year, and like so many others, it attracted scant attention. But for Schneider and the many others who tried to help Flournoy, it was a searing event. Schneider's relationship with Flournoy offers a glimpse of how some try to curb violence amid a spike in killings, as well as how they help those in the criminal justice and mental health systems find a way out. The relationship shows, too, how tough that job is even when those on the inside go beyond their official duties, as Schneider did by remaining a part of Flournoy's life after he had completed his probation.

"Tom was like a second father to Parrish," said Raymond Morrissey, an attorney and Flournoy's court-appointed guardian ad litum — meaning his job was to represent Flournoy's interests. "There are a lot of probation officers who are good. But Tom went above and beyond with Parrish."

The lives of Schneider and Flournoy share little.

Schneider was raised in Morgan Park. He was arrested as a passenger in a stolen car at 15 but otherwise stayed out of trouble. What remained with him from that incident was the memory of his probation officer, Joe Zeller, a former pro football player for the Bears and Packers who was still a probation officer when Schneider began his career four decades ago.

Schneider is what you might imagine a probation officer looks like: slightly rumpled with gray hair, a matching lampshade mustache and an expression that suggests he has seen pretty much everything. During the course of his career, he has worked on the North and South sides, finishing up as a supervisor in the Englewood neighborhood. Two dozen of the youths he has worked with have died, all but two of them victims of murder.

He was so anguished by Flournoy's slaying that he wrote an essay decrying the city's violence and calling for groundbreaking solutions.

"I've had so many kids that this happened to," said Schneider, who is 65. "It's become so commonplace that it's become expected."

Flournoy was fated for that sort of ending, or so it seemed. He was born into poverty and neglect, according to court and social service files, and taken out of his home due to that neglect. He moved between foster homes and other placements, the files show, then was placed at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines. Between the ages of roughly 11 and 13,, he alleged that he was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a staff member, according to police reports, other documents and a lawsuit he filed against the facility.

The lawsuit was later settled, with Maryville denying any wrongdoing.

At 16, Flournoy was arrested for burglary when police caught him walking down the street with a stolen TV. That is when Schneider entered his life. At the time, Flournoy was living in a group home on the North Side and, Schneider recalled, he was immature but pleasant.

"You're trying to encourage him to take advantage of the services being offered to him," Schneider said of his role in Flournoy's life.